Learning to Watercolor, Day 1
Day 1
I really want to learn how to watercolor, but so far all I’ve done is draw Peppa Pig. I bought my daughter watercolors for Christmas and have been helping myself to trying them out. One day I’ll take a Skillshare class, absorb some Pinterest tutorials, and watch a bunch of YouTube how-tos, but until then, this is the only thing I know how to paint.
Here are my first batch of drawings.
Always remember your first.
Ok let’s try that again, only a bit more extreme.
Peppa Pig and her family.
Less is more with the watercolor pigments; lay down just enough water, but not enough to puddle, and the watercolor will spread out and begin to fill in the wet areas with dreamy colors.
At this point I’m finding it quite difficult to paint detailed line work, struggling to be patient and let things dry before continuing, and really laying it on too thick.
Nonetheless, things quickly went off the rails.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Bird Box Peppa
Peppa, what are you doing in my deadlights?
“They all float down here George!”
The brush pens are becoming a bit more predictable. I’m able to use the medium sized brush to make sharp lines as well as large fills. Starting to get the hang of how much water is needed to wet the paper before putting pigments down (and using a paper towel to soak up excess mistakes).
If you work light enough and wet enough, it’s easy to soak up any mistakes, let things dry, and have another go at an area in a few minutes.
Maaro maaro sooar ko, chamdi nocho pee lo khoon!
Come play with us!
So I’m a pretty huge fan of movies in general, but the Mola Ram scene from the Temple of Doom is so good. Did you know the chant Mola Ram speaks before he performs his special cardiac procedure is literally translated as “Kill, Kill the pig, flay his skin, drink his blood.” I only learned that after looking for the image quote above, just now. How fitting right? Because pigs and such, ok never mind. The more you know!
And to wrap up my initial watercolor explorations, I bring you these two final images.
“I’ll be back Killian!”
Yum!
Fire is certainly harder than it looks 🔥My last take-away from everything is controlling the color intensity by watering it down. Notice the various shades of pink in all the faces; it was a challenge to have consistency between everyone without pre-mixing the red and white and using diluted pigments.
Paints and Brushes
Here is the paint set and the brushes I’ve been using:
Wrapping Up
I didn’t stop because I was done, I stopped because I used up all my daughter’s watercolor paper. 😂🐷
I’ve already ordered more.
Overall I feel pretty confident with this whole watercolor thing, at least to the point where I won’t wind up on some ‘nailed it’ Pinterest board. All I need now is some book-learnin’.
I am however a bit disappointed with my scanner. It really blows out the images to where they lose all the fine details and subtlety. The images above have been tweaked a bit to retain as much detail as possible and comped onto fiber paper, simply to preserve the real-life presentation. Next time I’m going to photograph everything.
Thanks for reading.